For a while there, it felt like Motorola had given up on flagships, at least the non-folding kind. The Motorola Signature 27 is a return to form for the storied smartphone maker (the phone’s shape is kind of reminiscent of the old Droid Razrs, isn’t it?). Among its many other impressive specs, this is the first Moto that supports GrapheneOS, a privacy-focused fork of Android that lets you decide how much Google you want in your life.
The previous Signature was a fine phone, but it had a few weak spots – the 27 model is a proper beast. Starting with the chipset, the previous model used the non-Elite Snapdragon 8 Gen 5, while the new one has the Snapdragon 8 Elite Extreme Gen 6. It’s paired with 12GB or 16GB of LPDDR5X RAM and 256GB or 512GB of UFS 4.1 storage. And Motorola is promising 7 years of OS updates – the phone launches with Android 17 (and don’t forget the GrapheneOS option).
Motorola Signature 27 in: PANTONE Capulet Olive
The 6.8” tandem OLED display is pretty beastly too with up to 12,000 nits of peak brightness. That’s close to double what the previous model had and is (Motorola claims) the brightest smartphone display ever. The tandem design doesn’t just offer record-setting brightness, it also improves efficiency by up to 34% and extends the panel’s life by up to 121%.
Then there’s the battery – with 7,000mAh capacity, it is 35% larger than the previous Signature. It supports fast 90W TurboPower wired and 50W wireless charging (0-100% in 80 minutes). The 27 is a bit chunkier than its predecessor – 8mm vs. 7mm thick, 227g vs. 186g – but we’ll gladly take the extra battery life.
Motorola Signature 27 in: PANTONE Coal Smoke
The 50MP main camera uses Sony’s first LOFIC sensor, the Lytia L910. The telephoto camera has a 3x lens and a high-resolution 200MP sensor (up from 50MP on the previous model). There’s also a 50MP ultra-wide and a 50MP selfie camera on board. Motorola also boasts about the EVS action sensor – this stands for Event-based Vision Sensor, which can freeze fast-moving objects in place.
Moto will start pre-sales of the Motorola Signature 27 on November 16 across Europe, the Middle East, Turkey and Africa. We’d love to see it in North America as soon as possible too since Samsung can use some competition in the flagship Android market (Google keeps dropping the ball and OnePlus bailed). The phone will cost €1,400, though in some regions it will be as high as €1,800.
What do you think – will you consider the Motorola Signature 27 when shopping for your next flagship? Will you run Moto’s Hello UI or will you go with GrapheneOS?